


june always stays

by xervos



Category: Hyouka & Kotenbu Series
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Time Loop AU, more tags to be added when i actually think about it more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28333098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xervos/pseuds/xervos
Summary: Chitanda Eru wakes on the morning of an indiscriminate Thursday in June to the sound of her alarm beeping. When she opens her eyes, she meets the gaze of her eggplant, and she smiles to get ready for a new day.-It’s the tenth day of listening to Oreki-san grunt in annoyance about his toe when she asks him if there’s been anything strange going on.-"I've been through so many 'today's that I can't remember what 'yesterday' was like."
Relationships: Chitanda Eru & Oreki Houtarou, Chitanda Eru/Oreki Houtarou
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	june always stays

Chitanda Eru wakes on the morning of an indiscriminate Thursday in June to the sound of her alarm beeping. When she opens her eyes, she meets the gaze of her eggplant, and she smiles to get ready for a new day.

She eats her breakfast and bikes the way to Kamiyama High. On the way to the front gates, she meets Oreki-san who listens to her talk about a dream she had the night before. He looks a little nervous about something, but she does not pry, and bids him goodbye when he enters his classroom.

She goes through her classes, eats lunch with some people in her class, and visits the clubroom. It’s only Mayaka-san there today, and according to her Fukube-san is busy with some Student Council meetings.

She reads a book, does a bit of her homework, and goes home when the sky is orange.

She prepares dinner with her mother, does a bit more homework while chatting with her parents, and goes to sleep.

-

Chitanda Eru feels a bit of deja vu, but maybe it’s just that kind of day.

She gets ready, goes to school, does her homework, and goes to sleep.

It’s a bit uncanny how she had known that Oreki-san was going to stub his toe when he was going to enter the classroom, or that her classmates would decide on having scrunchies were better than having hair clips, or that she beat Mayaka-san to saying that Fukube-san had some meetings to do.

“I had a dream,” she explained when Mayaka-san looked at her in surprise. “You said Fukube-san had Student Council work.”

“I wish I had premonition dreams too,” Mayaka-san was pouting. It was very amusing to look at so Eru patted her head. “So about the anthology…”

-

It’s the tenth day of listening to Oreki-san grunt in annoyance about his toe when she asks him if there’s been anything strange going on.

“What do you mean?” They’re in the clinic. Today she didn’t warn him about stubbing it, so she accompanied him to the clinic to bandage it. It was lucky blood didn’t go everywhere.

“Have the days been...repetitive?”

“Sounds like a rut.”

“Not particularly like that but, the exact same day, again and again?”

“Like the dream you had last night when everything in the dream was the same in real life?”

Eru nods and Oreki-san tugged at his hair. She was just about finished, her wrapping a bit messy, but still. She stood to put the bandages away.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him. “Maybe it was. Just a dream, I mean.”

“But—”

The bell rings, and they both leave the clinic in silence.

-

Another Thursday, another day of school. Eru doesn’t usually think so but she wishes that it would be the weekend so she can at least work through the day with Oreki-san to catch him up on everything.

If anything, Oreki-san would know how to break her out of the loop.

Yes, there must be some strange, but still logical reason why everything is happening.

“Oreki-san, if you can… please accompany me tonight.” She asks this, in the empty clubroom right as he stood to leave for the day and the sun basks the room in a golden glow.

Oreki looks strange as he questions it. “Chitanda, what—”

“Please,” and that was the end of that. Houtarou didn’t ask, because if Chitanda won’t say so, he’s better off not prying it out of her.

-

They were walking along a park, one that was popular with the students of North Elementary. Eru took a glance at him, his expression pensive, then looked away, to the playground instead.

“So, this… loop. It resets every night?”

Eru nods.

“And every morning you wake up to the exact same day?" They arrive at the swings. Eru takes a seat on one, and notices that Oreki-san sits on the one to her left. He looks focused, with his eyebrows knitting.

“Yes.”

“How many times have you gone through the same day?”

She’s not quite sure but… “A lot. There hasn’t been any deviation from the original events of today, except for, well, you know."

He was silent for a bit, and so was Eru. If 'tomorrow' would still become 'today' then it would erase a lot of progress that she'd have to catch up on.

“Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

“It’s been a while since ‘yesterday.’” She looks down at her feet. She doesn’t know what kind of face Oreki is making but she’s sure she doesn’t want to know. “I think I’ve gone through a few weeks’ worth of ‘today’s that ‘yesterday’ seems a bit far.”

"I see," Oreki-san sounded—she wasn't sure. Was he worried? His eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Have you tried writing it down?"

“I did, a while back. It disappeared from my desk. I found it again on the shelf where I got it from, empty.”

“Well, why don’t you try keeping it on you?”

Eru thought about it. She always woke up the same way, in the same clothes she put on ‘yesterday’ holding her eggplant. Come to think of it though, in an earlier loop, there was a time that she fell asleep holding the pen she used while she was trying to complete her homework yet again.

“I’ll try,” she says, and Oreki seems to have relaxed a bit. She wants to thank him for coming along and hearing her out, but she doesn’t want to. Not yet. Not if it means that she’ll end up facing ‘tomorrow’ alone yet again. “Let’s sit down for a while.”

Oreki nods and they look for a place to sit. When they strike up a new conversation, about Fukube and his clubs, Eru thinks that they’re both trying to skirt away from the topic of time loops. They find a seat soon, a small bench next to a vending machine. It was a few minutes close to midnight. Their conversation lulled, and neither of them minded lapsing into silence.

Oreki had fallen into a light doze. Eru hadn’t been this out late with someone else before, and it’s a bit unnerving. Not that it would matter.

Eru studied his face. She’s seen most of the iterations of Oreki Houtarou in the loop, but it was the one of the few times she actually got a close look at him.

It was strange, Eru thinks, because this Oreki Houtarou seemed to be more accepting than the rest. She reached out, feeling a bit more brave. A bit more daring. If this was all to be reset, she might as well make the best of it.

It was strange, when several iterations ago, she held his hand and it was cold. In this one, as she laces their fingers together, she thinks,  _ how warm. _

“Oreki-san,” she whispers as she squeezes his hand. She hopes he would wake up and hear her. “I—”

Eru blinks. Her alarm clock was beeping. Her eggplant pillow stared at her.

It was cold.

If she had held it close to her chest and allowed herself a moment of quiet. Of peace. If she cried, nobody needed to know, not even herself.

**Author's Note:**

> well two posts in a day. that's new.
> 
> this was festering in my docs folder entitled 'chitanda eru: the ultimate angst' so i guess here's a hint on what's gonna happen. 
> 
> also, credit where credit is due, this has been sitting since august (a few days before au-august ended in the server) and i haven't touched it since. but because it's the holidays and with the secret santa (cough cough) gifts being posted i thought, _why not?_. also, i'm not quite sure if this was part of the prompt list or this was borne due to a bunch of manic comments talking about the good place.
> 
> the title has been pulled from ['all kinds of flowers' by breakup films](https://open.spotify.com/track/1tZma8JmKKfQv75NMQ4h4J?si=Qwq_F5bFRia0cg0OhblzWw) which was certainly planned and not because i didn't title this beforehand.
> 
> hope you enjoy! kudos, comments, shares, all of them are appreciated!  
> happy holidays!


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